right, so this is the poll i was waiting for, predictable establishment media hit job notwithstanding: 80% of democrats in minnesota want him to stay, and only 14% want him to step down.

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/361490-poll-22-percent-of-minnesotans-say-franken-should-remain-in-office

online surveys are dubious at best, and in this particular circumstance, where the media is clearly out to force franken to resign for obvious political reasons, i wouldn't even acknowledge the results of an online politico poll at all.

at all.

that said, the results of their dubious polling are that 51% of democrats and 56% of independents don't want franken to resign, while a slim majority of republicans do. and, i don't know how that becomes a majority, unless they're oversampling republicans.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

what's in a name?

to her benefit (of the doubt), this number seems to have a history as a landlord going back a few years.

so, this is either a repeat scam artist, or an agent in a cult, or legit.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

if this is not legit, this person is going to have to deal with the following:

1) i signed a lease.
2) i put down a balance.
3) i'm going to get the city of windsor to write her a check for $700.
4) i've got the local electrical company hooking me up.
5) i'll need to get the internet transferred in the morning, too.

that's a lot of people to help me in figuring out who owns the building, who this person is and what the fuck is going on.

again: this is not what i want to be doing. but, this is life. and i can;t change it.

i'm going to lose most of the day today, but i should get the whole day tomorrow to get through most of inri065, and get started on the comps.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

so, i found a facebook page linking to a company that bought this building in 2009, but that company no longer exists. it appears to have been shut down by the ontario government in 2013 for a securities violation. the building appears to have been managed by the management company with the human rights violations around 2011, when there was a fire in the basement. i have no further relevant information.

i'd be willing to accept the idea that it's just a holding company for a local person, but she said that the company is in british columbia, indicating they own multiple properties. you would expect a website...

the address on the form is occupied by somebody with the same name as the person that signed the check. but, some further sleuthing from local obituaries suggests that this person is quite a bit older than the person i met.

i could always call that number and see if it rings to the same person. but, this cell # is consistent and should be sufficient in identifying the person i signed the lease with, if i have to do that.

there is also a new unit for rent at that address with the same number - which could just as easily mean that the two buildings are owned by the same company and they have a common landlord as it could mean anything else.

i need to have this check cleared by friday. if it's not, i have to file on monday. and, i could very well call the number from a pay phone.

ugh.

well, this is life, for me. it's always been life, for me. it's just one absurd tragedy after another. but, this really seems strangely orchestrated.

i'm fully expecting to have to cause problems at odsp in the morning.

i also have to mail the oesp form...

but, i'm going to get something to eat and at least finish the last aleph, first. i'll give the office a call around 9:00 and go from there.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

so, i don't even know what the hell is going on, but i'm starting to get alarmed, and concerned that i may have to file this appeal, after all.

i got my respondent's letter respecting evidence in the mail, today. i suspect the lawyer didn't look into the situation very closely, as he's trying to rule out evidence that was used in court under the argument that it wasn't served on the landlord. i actually have until the 4th to file, but i should know what's going on by the 29th.

i thought i was just being overly cautious in waiting the situation out before i informed by landlord of an intention to leave. see, if i tell them i'm leaving, and something doesn't pan out, i'm in a lot of trouble. so, it's better for me to be quiet until i actually get the keys. my due diligence is in getting the keys as quickly as possible.

however, my down payment hasn't gone through yet. i called my bank, and they're telling me there's no evidence it was cashed. i called the landlord yesterday and she told me she cashed it. i have a receipt, and a lease, right?

the company on the lease does not exist on the internet, which basically means they don't exist at all. what the fuck? i need to figure out who owns this building...

i went to odsp yesterday; my worker was gone last week, so i had to wait until she came back. she tried to get me to sign a direct deposit form, which i thought was a little odd, and that she'd fax the information afterwards. so, i called the city directly and they told me that she actually can't do that, and she's supposed to call them. so, i'm going to have to go in tomorrow and demand that we call the city together, and i'm listening in on the process. and, if she won't, i'm going to have to go over her head, somehow.

i also called some moving people that were referred to me by the city, and they said they'd call the worker directly, which is odd. i'll find out tomorrow if they called the worker or not.

it feels like i'm dealing with some kind of local cult that's out to get me, or something. it's very strange, to say the least.

maybe it all aligns properly in the next 48 hours.

but, if that check doesn't clear soon, i'm going to have to get the documents ready.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

i've said before that i think that bill clinton should have just admitted it. but, that had to do with the consensual aspects of his accusations.

my understanding of the lewinsky situation is that it wasn't just consensual, but she actually thought she was in a serious relationship with him - that she was stealing him from hillary. and, i have a hard time believing that he in any way broadcast that. i don't think there's any question that there was a power imbalance at work. but, you can only take the situation so far before you run into a set of fantasies on the other side. if the truth is that what lewinsky actually wanted was more than what bill was willing to offer, it's hard to consider that harassment, even if the power imbalance was at the crux of it. you can have eager consent in a relationship with a lopsided power imbalance, too. and, what bill is consequently really guilty of, here, is leading her on - hardly an actual crime.

correct me if i'm wrong, but i don't recall any accusations of actual assault surfacing while bill clinton was in office, or any correctional bodies dealing with anything of the sort. it was just about the question of whether extramarital sex is immoral. and, on that point, you have to defend the president against the moral zealots, if you want any claim to being a liberal at all.

that's a separate issue to any claims of rape or assault. and, i've kind of heard of them, but haven't really looked into it much, and so don't have a real opinion on it. i'll remind you that i was a teenager at the time.

the one thing i have looked into is the lewinsky thing, and i'll double down that he should have just admitted it.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

the idea of a second jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj record was not something that remotely crossed my mind until i started seriously analysing my work from 2002. that was a separate idea; rabit is wolf separated it from the trivial group. however, remixed instrumental tracks over the rabit is wolf period slowly collected to the point that there was enough to justify a whole record. that wasn't a conscious choice at the outset, but it seems to be the conceptual framework collected on the record. i toyed with the idea of releasing it as a rabit remix record, but my influence over it is far too lopsided.

the thematic linkage with the first jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj record is a tendency to lean towards more "serious" ideas. there are strong influences from a few different types of classical music, including jazz, as well as some more modern electronic and noise influences. however, these songs lean more towards more palatable rock or techno based song structures and are less dependent on existing scores.

the stories for these songs are diverse and explained in more detail on the track pages.

these tracks are all based on existing demos from 2001-2002 that were initially intended to be completed with vocal parts and were remixed from july, 2014 to may, 2015 as purely instrumental recordings. final completion date is may 2, 2015. this is my sixth official record; disc finalized as lp014 on nov 21, 2017. as always, please use headphones.

this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (2001, 2002, 2014, 2015, 2017). 

credits

released December 1, 2002

j - electric & acoustic guitars, electric bass guitar, effects, synths, electric air reed organ, digital piano, flute, voice, electronic drum kit, drum programming, drum manipulations, drum sampling, orchestral sequencing, sampling, loops, equalization, digital wave editing, sound design, production, composition.

sean - harmonica (2), melody (6)
greg - drum performance sample source (4)

the various rendered electronic orchestras include tuba, french horn, trombone, trumpet, english horn, saxophone, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, flute, orchestra hit, melodic toms, timpani, orchestral drum set, piano, agogo, tubular bells, glockenspiel, koto, violin, viola, cello, contrabass and various full string sections. it also includes choir. 

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

actually, i think there's a decent possibility that this "interstellar asteroid" is a starship.

well, look at the evidence carefully.

you don't expect a rock to be able to do this.

certainly, if a large spaceship were to move into our solar system from outside of it, it would act roughly like this asteroid is acting.

but, we'll see whether it boomerangs out or not, eh?

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

i may not have gone over this in this space.

it's a kind of synthesis. i'm not into false dichotomies.

so, here's how this works: up until 1980, for as far back as we could measure it, the global mean temperatures on earth moved in a very close correlation with the sun. so, when the sun got warmer, the temperatures went up. and, when the sun got cooler, the temperatures went down. it really wasn't complicated at all, in fact.

the sun is, after all, the source of virtually all natural heat on this planet. the atmosphere may trap some heat, but it has to come from somewhere. and, the sun is where essentially all of it comes from. this is really as obvious as it should be, intuitively.

but, starting in 1980 - and this is what the ipcc report is actually about - this correlation broke. what happened is that, for the first time on record, the sun got cooler - but temperatures went up. so, we would need to seek an alternate cause for that increase in temperatures, and that alternate cause appears to be - as best as we can tell - the increase in atmospheric carbon.

but, the sun has not stopped getting cooler since 1980. rather, the cooling has actually accelerated, to the point where it's created some alarm amongst certain solar scientists.

i've pointed out repeatedly that my background is in mathematics, and i'm just dabbling when it comes to climate change. but, a background in math means you can read just about anything - what it does is cut the learning curves down. and, i don't have difficulties understanding published papers in climate science, because of that. so, i've read a few.

it's not that decreasing the total amount of energy from the sun has any effect on the amount that is absorbed, exactly. this is measured in w/m^2, and it's not a big difference, relatively, even if you account for the large number of metres squared over the area that the sun hits, which is in the northern hemisphere, because the earth is tilted. in theory, if the sun turned off, sure - but these are small fluctuations. so, if you live in australia, total solar irradiance will not have much of an effect on the weather you experience. but, the weather we experience here in southern canada is driven almost entirely by the jet stream, and the dominant factor that controls how the jet stream behaves is, in fact, how much energy you're getting from the sun.

as we are in an interglacial, the earth is in fact in constant threat of snowballing. how would the earth snowball, if it were to do so? what would happen is that the arctic air masses would reach out from the poles until they reached each other, enveloping the earth in total frozenness. and, the sun would need some extra help in unfreezing the earth at that point. sunlight wouldn't be enough. it would need the warm air masses, some how, like maybe via an increase in atmospheric carbon, to help trap in heat from an internal source, like a volcano.

what keeps this cold air bottled up is sunlight. well, again, not exactly - the sunlight triggers a reaction in the atmosphere, and it's then the jetstream that keeps it bottled up. but, you can think of this like you think of photosynthesis: it is essentially a function of the sunlight. in the summer, the arctic air mass shrinks to directly around the pole, as a consequence of the increase in sunlight. and, in the winter, the air mass expands as a consequence of a decrease in sunlight.

every year at the bottom of the winter, we get dangerously close to the trigger point. and, what global warming is doing is exaggerating the shrinkage involved in bottling the air masses up.

but, these are the two extremes - it works in degrees, too.

so, when the northern hemisphere gets less sunlight, the arctic air masses that the sunlight bottles up are more able to escape, which they are constantly seeking to do. then, you get colder winters  - and blicky summers - in the areas dominated by the northern jetstream, which often runs close to the us-canada border in north america.

we're entering a solar minimum in one of the weakest cycles we've ever seen. that is going to make it that much easier for the arctic air to escape downwards. and, that is the crux of your forecast of a winter dominated by polar air masses - vortexes, if you will - moving into the inhabited areas of north america.

but, i'm skeptical that this dominates the winter, because we still have so much warm air in the oceans, as a result of the global warming. look at the hurricanes we had this year. there's a lot of heat, there, and it's not able to dissipate like it used to.

so, what you get is a tug of war between the cold arctic masses pushing down and the warm ocean air pushing up - which is technically tautological. that's every winter. except the extremes are both intense, right now.

if emissions continue as they are, and the sun comes back, we're going to get really, really hot all at once. but, if the sun stays weak for the next several decades, this particular area of the planet is probably going to avoid a lot of the warming effects in the short run, as these cold air masses are allowed to run rampant.

no trend in reality is monolithic. or, to take some poetic license with newton: there's always a counterforce.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

i'm not at all excited about the possibility of a "classic winter".

thankfully, i think this is mostly just oil industry propaganda, although the next couple of winters are going to be a kind of tug of war in canada, as the strengthening greenhouse effect fights against a decrease in total solar irradiance for influence over the jet stream.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

i'm considering doing a pop record, and calling it "music for children".

jagmeet singh must his beard.

so, where am i on this?

i printed inri061 & inri062 yesterday, and the ink still seems fine, although the printer seems to be wasting more & more of it by the day.

61 was a big item, and needed a lot of cyan, and i screwed up 62 on the first print. so, i've already printed around 30 pages and 8 discs, and i'm only a third down. if i get 100 pages out of it, that's $0.20/page. and that's more like something i can budget around, long term.

i need to go in the other room to finish the back for aleph-14, which is the 5th flac dvd disc. 63 is the record, and it's done. then, there's the box set, which is more typing. 64 is the flying single, which is done - but is also the first 2003 release, and the first trivial group release. it's a definite shift. but, the period doesn't end until may, when i leave for bc. 65 is refractions, which is the last one of these that will require any serious input into expansion, and may end up as a 2xcd set.

after that, there's a string of several compilation records that will need to be finalized all at once. that really closes period 2.

but, the last release in this string of items is my eighth symphony, the reflections ep, which i need to expand to be comprehensive. that is dated to may 1, 2003 and represents the absolute end of my second period.

period 3 will pick back up again in september, 2003, after i've come back home and had some time to lose my mind a little bit more. i don't know if i'll get to this before the 1st or not. but, the material coming after this has not been recently published, and in some cases hasn't ever been published.

i need to prioritize the alter-reality. and, the move is going to mean reconstructing all of the electronics in my life. so, this material may sit for a while.

but, i'm turning a corner on this. soon. very soon.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

purchasing this release does not come with a download.

inri054: recorded in late 2001 and early 2002. track 6 was constructed in may, 2004 out of files recorded 1999-2001. tracks 1-4 were reconstructed over october, 2014. final mixes were finished on october 18, 2014. disc closed on oct 30, 2017.

inri055: written in early 2002 and recorded in early 2002 and late 2014. the final fuck boxes mixes were finished on nov 15, 2014. the gentle mix was created and then left stranded on may 24, 2015. the ambient mix and the guitar mix were rendered on nov 1, 2017. disc finalized on nov 1, 2017.

inri056: written & recorded in late 2001 and early 2002 and mixed in early 2002 and late 2014. the final mix was finished on nov 18, 2014. the uncorrupted mix was created on nov 18, 2014 and then cut up into the unstuck mix, but not added to the release until nov 2, 2017. the lorentz factor mix and the separated from mix were rendered on nov 2, 2017. disc finalized on nov 2, 2017.

inri057: written and recorded in late 2001 and early 2002. initially sequenced in may, 2002. released in slightly different forms from 2002-2014. resequenced to mimic the original sequencing on november 8, 2014. except to sequence the record, these files have not been altered since 2002. disc finalized as lp013 on nov 3, 2017.

inri058: written over 2001 and rethought repeatedly over 2002, again in 2007, a third time in 2009 and one last time in late 2014. final mixes were completed over the last week of november and the first week of december, 2014. the concept was rethought on nov 3, 2017, which led to the inclusion of five more mixes (from 2002, 2009, 2014, 2015 and 2017) and an expansion from two cds to four cds. disc finalized as symph007 on nov 12, 2017.

inri059: written and recorded in late 2001 and the first half of 2002. mildly remixed in november, 2014 to make the tracks more presentable; nothing substantial was altered, and no new sound was recorded. final mixes were on november 19, 2014. disc released on physical media and finalized as inri059 on nov 14, 2017.

inri060: written in august, 2002. track one was mildly remixed on dec 12, 2014; two and three were uploaded unmodified. final completion date is dec 12, 2014. disc finalized on nov 14, 2017.

inri061 :written over the summer of 2002 and initially recorded in the early fall of 2002. additional recording, production and mixing occurred from dec, 2014 to apr, 2015. initial final completion occurred on april 27, 2015. however, eight more supplementary remixes were added to the release over nov 17-nov 19, 2017 to expand it into a three disc set. disc finalized on nov 19, 2017.

inri062: this track was written in late 2002 and completed over april and may, 2015. final completion date is may 11, 2015. disc finalized on nov 20, 2017.

originally created over the course of 2002, with some files dating to late 2001. this compilation is dated to nov 30, 2002. slowly remastered, reconstituted, compiled, reconstructed, released and finalized from 2014-2017. compilation finalized on nov 21, 2017. as always, please use headphones. 

credits

released November 30, 2002

j - guitars (electric, acoustic, nylon), electric bass, electric mandolin, sequencers, synthesizers, drum & melodic & orchestral programming, electric air reed organ, digital piano, flute, regular drum kit, electronic drum kit, sampling, digital and analog effects processing, sound design, soundscaping, loops, granular synthesis, noise generators, voice, vocoders, drum & vocal manipulations, digital wave editing, equalizers, production, composition.

sean - vocals/lyrics (inri054-inri059, inri061), harmonica (inri054, inri057), ring modulator (inri057-inri058), vocal concept (inri062)
greg - drum performance sample source (inri056-inri058)
jon - guitar performance (inri057)
bob - hammering (inri058)

the various rendered electronic orchestras include acoustic bass, synth bass, electric bass, brass, french horn, trombone, trumpet, tuba, english horn, saxophone, flute, oboe, piccolo, clarinet, bassoon, orchestra hit, drum machine, electronic drum kit, nylon guitar, electric guitar (distorted & clean), acoustic guitar, synthesizers, synthesizer effects, glockenspiel, vibraphone, hammered percussion, music box, tubular bells, bells, agogo, wood blocks, marimba, melodic toms, timpani, taiko drum, backwards cymbals, synth drums, orchestral drum set, harp, koto, piano, bells, mellotron, violin, viola, cello, contrabass and various full string sections. there is also choir. 

 

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/flac-dvd-disc-volume-5

 

jagmeet singh must his beard.

the premise of categorizing shawn mendes as "adult contemporary" speaks volumes towards the juvenilization of our culture.

this is something that ought to appeal strictly to eight year-olds.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

wait a second - are we supposed to uncritically believe women without any attempt to fact check, or not?

it seems like that principle is really only as good as it is useful as it is to run a good story. and, the ladies here should realize that they're really being taken of advantage of by a media that doesn't actually care about what they have to say, but sees exploiting them as a good way to make a lot of money.

in the end, if what they say gets in the way of the story, it gets jettisoned. and, that was predictable.

so, when ariana huffington says the photos weren't harassment in any way, that should be enough, based on the logic of this lacking movement, itself. instead, we're invited by the same media that pushed these ideas of female purity to question her motives, as the media tries to figure out what she was thinking from her body language [her lips said yes, but her body said no. she clearly wasn't asking for this.] and questions her allegiance to women's advocacy for the sin of refusing to take part in an obvious smear campaign.

are you starting to understand what's going on, yet?

https://pagesix.com/2017/11/20/new-pics-show-al-franken-grabbing-arianna-huffingtons-breasts-and-butt/

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

that's almost as bad as the time he called somebody on the phone.

i especially like the clinical term, "buttocks", in the article.

the narrative that they're pushing here is that franken is too unattractive to run for president and that any kind of casual touching is just enough to leave any halfways attractive woman grossed out. the democrats would be better off with a sexier guy that can grab woman at state fairs for selfies without them complaining about it, or even have them line up for it. whatever kind of bullying this is, and however much it's designed to cover up the reality that he's being a problem in the senate, it might be reasonably true.

but, that's the kind of logic that got us stuck with a right-wing neo-liberal pawn like justin trudeau, who has revealed a set of truly awful political positions on the gamut of traditional left-wing voting issues, even relative to historical liberal party standards. at least barack obama passed a couple of meaningful pieces of legislation on climate change. he's useless to anybody but identity voters. and, that might be all he has left in the next election.

democrats should focus on building a political coalition. this strategy of just running a model on neo-liberal platitudes is going to leave them with the bottom fallen out.

this "accusation" is probably more likely to convince people that he's being targeted than that he's actually guilty of anything. it seems like this is all they've got.

the article really reads off like some kind of joke at the expense of the puritanical morass of middle america.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/20/politics/al-franken-inappropriate-touch-2010/

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

see, again: i've never heard of this show and i don't know who any of the actors are.

but, reading this very brief write-up, i'm able to come up with a clear motive from the supporting actress, who seems to want to take over the show.

and, he appears to have quit.

what do you do if you're amazon and you run your careful investigation and you figure out that that's true? it says in the article that this guy has won two emmys. he's old. but, you'd think you'd want to write a character like that out, not get them turfed like this. and, it's going to hurt the show.

even if it's completely true, it's going to hurt the show.

it could be that every single one of these accusations this month is legit. but, out of all of the accusations i've seen, the only one that seems void of an ulterior motive (excluding the ones that don't really even strike me as problematic) is the weinstein case. case after case has a really plausible take down scenario.

it's insane to take this line that you can or should make accusations without proof, in context, when every single one of these cases require a serious cross-examination to rule out obvious ulterior designs.

this is all just insanity.

at least the show, here, is doing an investigation. nobody else seems to be.

https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2017/11/19/jeffrey-tambor-wont-return-to-transparent-amid-sexual-harassment-allegations.html

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

so, it's supposed to be about some kind of power differential as though somebody is actually taking foucault seriously.

never take foucault seriously.

when i was a kid, the left didn't argue that people with power should use it responsibly, it argued that these power imbalances produce concepts of struggle and that if somebody has power over you, you need to fight them to take that power from them, and then deal with all of the people trying to take it from you. does a lion use it's power over a gazelle responsibly? it's absurdity.

and, if somebody asks you to do something, and you don't want to do it, you don't do it. you don't pretend that they have some kind of magic power over you, and you don't have a choice. this is not reality, it's twilight zone bullshit. what the actual fuck.

but, i should have known that this is what was going on, because this always happens with the foucauldians, they just end up back where burke was at. so, these so-called progressives start waving their foucault around and they just sound like conservatives - because that's what they actually are. and, they just piss me off as badly as any other conservative does, because they're not actually any different than any other conservative is.

this is exactly what my thesis about the christian right and the puritan left coming together is all about. and, foucault himself put the model in place: the iranian revolution, which came together via the same forces. you need to be very careful with burkeanism/foucauldianism. it is not socialism. it is not liberalism. it is a type of hierarchical monarchism that doesn't have any use for individual liberty.

again: i don't know anything about louis ck. but, i don't buy into these conservative theories of power: i think masturbating in front of somebody with their consent is actually perfectly ok. weird, but ok. and, i might suspect that most people are probably reacting not to any kind of harassment, but to the gross factor. and, they should probably just be honest about it.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

ok, one more.

i don't actually know who louis ck is. he seems to be an acquaintance of some comedians i know better. but, i don't actually know anything about him.

as far as i understand it, he's admitted to asking women if he can masturbate in front of them, then doing it.

see, i actually don't understand what's wrong with that. like, really. there's consent. what's the problem, here?

it's weird, maybe. but it doesn't strike me as wrong in any conceivable way. i mean, who is coming down on him for this, the fucking pope? what is this actually even about?

i don't get it.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

i need to forget about this; there are few things that push my buttons like puritanical christians, and i have better things to do than obsess over this, right now.

jameet singh must cut his beard.

this was meant to be the last rabit is wolf track, but instead morphed into the first trivial group song. this single explores the track from various angles.

sean wanted a song that just went "lalalala". i think his intent was to try and simplify my thought process, because what i'd been doing sounded more like FTIeikdTY7isdD7E5dk!. he was just kind of like "how about.....lalalala.".

it got a bit of an eye roll from me, as you could imagine, but i played with it. he wasn't really that excited about what i did, and it just didn't move forward. there were no further sessions, as he became interested in working with a more conventional early 00s "emotional hardcore" (think at the drive in) style guitarist and i got very involved in a relationship.

despite his initial suggestion, i'd consider the result to clearly be of my own doing. so, i took the core of what i did and warped it into the first track on the reflections symphony. this track has lain dormant since, comfortably completed.

it's now 2015, and i'm completing my discography. that puts this track in a blurry space: it was completed, but not as initially intended. while there may have been a vocal part recorded, i don't have it any more. yet, the intention is clear enough - and the manipulation would have been thick enough - that i do not consider it to be invasive to complete it on my own.

i'm releasing it as rabit because it's collaborative in the abstract, despite sean not actually existing in the track. this track was written in late 2002 and completed over april and may, 2015. final completion date is may 11, 2015. disc finalized on nov 20, 2017. as always, please use headphones.

the album version of the track (track 3) also appears on my sixth record:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj-2

this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (2002, 2015, 2017). 

credits

released November 15, 2002

j - guitar, effects, bass, drum programming, soundscaping, sound design, sampling, vocals, vocoders, digital wave editing

sean - lyrical concept 

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

no.

i need to be absolutely, unambiguously clear: we cannot create a climate where anybody is free to make unchallenged accusations against anybody else.

that is not "progress". that is backwardsness. that is totalitarian. that is dystopic.

and, it is imperative that this be resisted, before it is too late.

i will never support any movement that seeks to dispense with the presumption of innocence or due process of law. and i would hope that any group of people that is championing such a thing would be roundly defeated in the court of public opinion.

remember: the mainstream media is not an echo chamber of public opinion, but a tool that the elite uses to bludgeon delusions into us. it rarely reflects what anybody is actually thinking. rather, it seeks to manufacture viewpoints for us. and, the truth is that it usually fails in it's tasks.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_jamming

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

what is my experience with assault and/or harassment?

i've never been raped.

i've been hollered at. i've been followed. i've been groped. i've had people expose themselves to me. i've been kissed without consent, albeit not with a tongue.

the truth is that the only time it's bothered me is when it's been an issue of safety - being followed, mostly. generally, i'm going to laugh at you if you try to act indecently around me.

i remember one night a few years ago, when i ended up in a park with a stranger in downtown ottawa that is known for two things at the wee hours - marijuana and public sex. i was there for the marijuana. it seemed like this dude also wanted sex. but, he was too drunk to get his pants off, and his attempt to expose himself just ended up cracking me up. rather than accuse him of assault or exposure, i ended up helping him to a different and safer park bench, with his pants around his ankles, and left him with instructions not to lay on his back.

a lot of women would have put this guy away for that. i just thought it was funny.

and, there is a difference in mindset here, and it is a result of a difference in conditioning. i simply wasn't raised in a conservative environment, or with conservative values. and, i usually have this conversation when i'm attempting to explain that i haven't had to unlearn anything, but in this context it's more like i have to try and figure out what people are even so indignant about, because these are legitimately values - and a value system - that is simply foreign to me. these aren't things that anybody ever told me to get angry about.

i was raised to laugh at the absurd, not to get angry or feel victimized. and, i was raised to give as much deference to the free will of others - as absurd as it may be - as i give to myself.

so, when somebody gropes me, i push them off of me. and, then i forget about it. and, i don't quite understand what the purpose of acting further might be. when somebody hollers at me or slows down in their car to check me out, i make sure i'm in a lit area and keep walking. and, i tell them to fuck off if i have to. and, when somebody exposes themselves to me, i just laugh it off - because it is usually comical, if viewed from enough distance.

i don't think i'm oppressed. i don't think i'm carrying around some systemic burden of being at the bottom of some hierarchy. if anything, maybe my indifference is a sign of liberation, or at least a lack of repression. i just think i'm a human being navigating it's way through an unending sequence of complex social interactions, and trying to make the best of it.

there's lines to be drawn, of course. as mentioned, i've never been raped. but, i don't think i'd shrug it off, if i had been.

but, as a liberal anarchist, i'm going to draw these lines very differently than a conservative - or, as it seems, a progressive - might. and, i'm going to insist that people see the relativism in this, and the necessity of being careful about where the law puts these lines down, as a result of it.

not everybody shares your values.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

and, let us not be naive.

for, the abolition of due process will not make it easier to bring the evasive and wealthy corporate criminal to justice. this person will preservere as always.

but, it will make it so much easier for that evasive and wealthy corporate criminal to put troublesome activists and those who would otherwise challenge power away for good, as they will lose their primary means of defence. it will make it easier for all kinds of rich to oppress all kinds of poor, based on whatever it is that defines such things. and, that is all.

maybe you're speaking from the other side of the class war, and understand what you're doing. but, i suspect you're not - i suspect you're just not thinking this through.

and, that's what i'm here for.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

listen, al, man, i know you're trying to avoid a faux feminist backlash, and i get it, there's good reason to choose your words carefully in defending yourself, but i actually think we really need a "have you no decency?" moment regarding the presumption of innocence, because this is just going to get worse if nobody steps up.

there are some things that we can let the pendulum swing too far on out of a sense of retribution. maybe, some dude somewhere needs to suck it up when he doesn't get the promotion that he really does legitimately deserve - because his father got a promotion he didn't deserve, and that put him through pre-school and on the track to outcompeting his peers for his whole life. these are pendulum overshoots that we can all adjust to, under the expectation that an equilibrium is in reach.

but, due process is not one of those things. when you lose due process, you lose democracy. and, nobody can be smug about that. that's existential. and, it requires a really serious response.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

yes, i would trust al franken before i trusted leann tweedon.

and, you should give your head a shake if you would say otherwise, and don't think barack obama was born in kenya.

if you do think barack obama was born in kenya, i can't fault you for it, though.

'cause that's something else she's gone on the news and said is true. and, no, i don't think she believes it actually is.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

republishing inri061

this is the second of two lengthy singles to come out of tracks that were begun in 2002 and not completed to my liking. the mixes in this single chart this song's rather elaborate development over fifteen years, with the first disc consisting of historical versions and the next two discs consisting of finished mixes.

it became clear through the course of july, 2002 that rabit is wolf wasn't really going anywhere and i was better off cutting my losses. we jammed a few times, but it wasn't really serious.

this track was initially written as a folk punk song, but i jumped to the scorewriter with it almost immediately. the expanded guitar demo was written in a scorewriter and then performed, rather than vice versa. it was initially less about explicitly creating a techno song and more about ordering the parts in a way that could be deconstructed more effectively. i wanted a more flexible approach to production that would allow me to take tracks in and out based on sean's input.

i may have gone over this in this space before, but my mixing process up to that point was considerably unconventional. i would record tracks in one by one using a wave editor and then paste them on top of each other. i worked this way because i just didn't have more advanced tools. while there are benefits to this approach (it's additive synthesis, which blurs the mix for soundscaping), it meant that each additional track was destructive. i could not remove tracks once they were added. this meant sean was unable to provide much input into demos i sent to him.

i also picked up a copy of cakewalk to help with this, but i quickly learned that my system couldn't really handle it. at around eight tracks, it just became unresponsive. with less than eight tracks, it didn't matter if the mix was destructive because it was easily reconstructed. so, i went back to the wave editor approach until 2007, when i upgraded to a modern pc.

the taiko drum part was initially just to keep time; it wasn't supposed to be a part of the song. but, as i built it up i began to realize how interesting it sounded as a techno tune and sort of ran with it. once i'd notated it, i had to convert the drums into a soundscape because the midi render just wasn't good enough. this was done using a mix of software drum machines, midi snippets and isolated jimmy chamberlain samples. i then performed the score i had notated, with the exception of a few synths which were sequenced back. unfortunately, the midi file for the synth build up at the beginning of the track has been lost.

the mix never came out well, partly due to ram issues with cakewalk and partly because i got a little pretentious with some of the parts. i was also extremely distracted over this period. despite this all being done to make sean's input more easily integrated into the material, he had no interest in the direction i took it and basically put his nose up at it again. i attempted a few different things over late 2002 and early 2003 to try and salvage it for my own purposes, but in the end i shelved it as unworkable.

when i first set up the bandcamp site around 2010, i realized i had a collection of tracks that fit a sort of techno-guitar description and compiled them together under the name "tetris". i uploaded an incomplete mix for that project, but it was never really done and i never really felt good about it.

it wasn't until late 2014 that i came back to the track, to authoritatively finish my discography. first, a mix was reconstructed from source to include all of the existing sound files. next, three separate sequencer mixes were sculpted out of the score - a jazz fusion mix, an overture mix and an ambient mix. pieces of these sequencer mixes were then isolated and mixed into the reconstructed original mix. finally, a series of extra lead guitar parts were recorded and mixed separately into a final mix and the orchestral mix, creating the end result and an accompanying guitar concerto. the recording process for this was very lengthy, which was ironically partly due to consistent distractions.

this release was revisited in november, 2017 as a part of the process of finalizing period 2 and was expanded from two to three discs through the addition of multiple supplementary mixes.

i've included the midi file of the original composition, if you'd like to mess with it on your own.

written over the summer of 2002 and initially recorded in the early fall of 2002. additional recording, production and mixing occurred from dec, 2014 to apr, 2015. initial final completion occurred on april 27, 2015. however, eight more supplementary remixes were added to the release over nov 17-nov 19, 2017 to expand it into a three disc set. disc finalized on nov 19, 2017. as always, please use headphones.

the album version of the track (track 7) also appears on my sixth record:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj-2

this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (2002, 2014, 2015, 2017). 

credits

released September 15, 2002

j - guitars, effects, bass, synthesizers, drum sampling, drum programming, sequencing, sound design, soundscaping, digital wave editing

the various rendered electronic orchestras include electric bass, synth bass, distorted electric guitar, clean electric guitar, acoustic guitar, violin, viola, cello, contrabass, harp, koto, french horn, trombone, trumpet, tuba, english horn, flute, oboe, piccolo, clarinet, bassoon, synthesizers, piano, glockenspiel, vibraphone, hammered percussion, music box, tubular bells, bells, agogo, wood blocks, marimba, melodic toms, timpani, taiko drum, backwards cymbals, synth drums, orchestral drum set and choir. 

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

i'm going to repeat this statement.

if there's one politician in america right now that the elite of the elite, the real bastards, could take out, it would not be bernie sanders, it would be al franken.

to the real power elite, he is the most dangerous politician in america, right now.

and, that is why my spidey senses immediately started tingling.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

i don't know anything about hollywood. so, i don't know who is being targetted here and who is legitimately guilty of something.

i'd never heard of harvey weinstein before. but, these accusations seem pretty substantial, and pretty cross-referenced.

i know who kevin spacey is from his work in the 90s, but i've never seen house of cards before. i've heard of it by title only. i've never taken the time to look into what it's about. and, i don't have friends, or a job, so i don't even have the benefit of overhearing people talk about it. i don't know what the topic of the show is, or what kind of character spacey plays. might powerful people want to get rid of this? i just simply don't know about this. i know that this is a disappointing way to lose kevin spacey. and, i assumed he was probably gay, but didn't really know.

i recognize george takei from his twitter activism and, of course, from his years on star trek. george takei is certainly somebody that certain people would want to get rid of.

and, i recognize franken through both of his careers, and realize he would truly be public enemy #1 to the existing political establishment. he is somebody that certain people would manufacture a situation around, without question.

i doubt that this is the end of this. but, i need to request that people be sober in their analyses. this is a golden opportunity to take people down. and, we all have a responsibility to weigh the evidence in front of us carefully, and not jump to conclusions.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

i wouldn't want a subservient man that grovels for sex, i'd want one that stands up for due process of law, respects the presumption of innocence and makes careful fact-based decisions by weighing the evidence before him.

i'm sorry if your standards are lower.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

or, maybe the reason that i speak as plainly as i do about these things is that i have absolutely no interest in developing any kind of sexual relationship with any kind of women.

you can't pussy whip the trannies, ladies. they don't want it at all.

sorry.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

good news and bad news.

the bad news is that i just lost my screen on my backup laptop. it's been flickering for a few days. so it's not unexpected. and i can see the screen if i look closely enough, so it seems to just be the light that's out. this is essentially the same thing that happened to my main laptop, so i'm suspecting that it's a power issue in the unit. i may learn, once i've moved, that a lot of the problems i've been having down here are from bad wiring.

when i rebuild my access point, it's going to be on a desktop. but, i'm going to need to have a laptop of some sort. i was hoping it would be this one...i'll have to see what it costs to fix it...

for right now, there's not much to do besides send the signal out to a monitor.

the good news is that i'm finished with inri061 and will be spending the rest of the night doing the write-up for it, with the intent to ship in the afternoon.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

no, you've got this backwards.

if it was somebody else, it might not have been funny. if it was charlie sheen, for example, it wouldn't have been funny. but, because it's al franken, and we know al franken's viewpoints, the transgressive humour can operate. i mean, in order for it to be absurd, it has to actually be absurd, and that's largely dependant on the person making the joke.

this kind of thing can operate in just about any context, so long as it's absurd. so, ted cruz could make a joke about socialism that bernie sanders couldn't make; and noam chomsky could make a joke about market theory that ted cruz couldn't make. a joke about a priest or a nun may not be funny if the person is not a priest or nun. &etc. the context of absurdity is really very strongly tied to the speaker or actor. and, a part of the joke is that you'd never expect al franken to actually do that, because you know his politics on the subject - it's a core part of the reason why it's so absurd.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

this idea of transgressive humour is well-defined and deeply explored in various literature.

i seek merely to point this out, right now.


https://www.ru.ac.za/media/rhodesuniversity/content/philosophy/documents/Ethics%20at%20the%20Cinema,%20Jones.pdf

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

so, why was the al franken mock grab photo actually kind of funny, after all, despite the protestations of right-wing pundits and morally self-righteous "progressives", everywhere?

i admit that i giggled when i first saw it. it's a cheap laugh, granted - gone in a second, and never to return. but, it worked as a reactionary laugh, and that was the extent of the intent.

it's not about patriarchy or dominance or control. what it's about is transgression; it's about blatantly flaunting the rules, giving the finger to the man, and doing it all with flair. and, you laugh because you know you shouldn't do that, and yet - look - he's doing it, anyways! the humour is in the audacity of it, and the absurdity of the audacity of it.

it's the same kind of humour that you can associate with any other brazen act of defiance for the sake of defiance, such as perhaps a brazen pie-in-the-face. and, sure - some people will just roundly condemn a good pie-ing as assault. but, they need to lighten up. maybe have a beer, spark a joint...

you can criticize him for this if you'd like, but understand that what you're actually doing is playing the role of the prudish conservative censor trying to shut down offensive comedy routines - you're reprising the role of tipper gore - and not the role of the feminist activist. and, you should expect to run up against push back from actual liberals, as rare as we seem to be, nowadays.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

it's the end of the day for me, but i think i've got this put together into a third disc set, and will be able to finalize it when i wake up.



jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

if the aspect of the culture that you're talking about is the part where you draw penises on your friends' faces when they're asleep, or glitter them, or put their hands in water?

i don't feel any particular impetus to fight to change this.

....because it's completely trivial.

sorry.

http://deadline.com/2017/11/bill-maher-al-franken-real-time-harvey-weinstein-donald-trump-1202210878/ 

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

what is the proper penalty for ignorance - and stupidity?

you almost wish the world was a little less populated, because what she really deserves is to be banished.

at the least, this is a situation where a court ought to be allowed to order her not to have more kids.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2017/11/17/tamara-lovett-calgary-mom-guilty-in-sons-strep-infection-death-gets-prison-time_a_23281094/?utm_source=spotim&utm_medium=spotim_recirculation&spotim_referrer=recirculation

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

"that's the kind of feminism my mom believed in."

that's right: your mom was a feminist.

you're not.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

so, i got my first print with the new ink done, and it actually seems to be a little more accurate than the official ink.

so, i'm not worried about quality.

but, i'm a little concerned about leakage, and will have to keep an eye on it.

right now, it seems fine. let's hope i can at least get through the month with it.

and, i'll have to keep track of the exact number of pages i print, as well. even if i only get the same 50 i got last time, i'm paying $20 this time instead of $100, so, it's down into a more reasonable price. and, if i get 100, it's closer to what i initially budgeted for. so, as long as it doesn't leak, this is probably a permanent solution.

the main black ink is supposedly out, too, after something like 30 pages. that's laughable - there must be ink left in the cartridge. so, i guess i'm putting all these cartridges aside for later, to figure out how to get the remaining ink out of them.

right now, i'm going to eat and get back to inri061. 60 is now ready to ship. i could potentially get this out on sunday.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

what i will say about bernie sanders running in 2020 is that i would hope that there is a younger, more viable candidate to challenge clinton in the primaries. i've been keeping an eye on franken for a few years as almost a singular example of somebody that could actually defeat clinton. if franken ends up pushed out or forced to resign, there really isn't anybody else with the ability to challenge clinton.

and, like so many people on the left, i think hillary clinton belongs at a criminal arraignment at the hague, not in the oval office. if i thought she was maybe a lesser evil 13 months ago, i don't at all think she is now. i would react with open hostility to a third clinton run.

i almost think franken should just dive into the thing head first, balls out, and take them right on. or, alternatively, go out with guns blazing. i know it's not really his style. but, the consequences of losing franken on the left are quite profound.

it's not that his positions are pristine. they're pretty good. i'm going to agree with almost everything he says, to the point that we don't get into a discussion about socialism. it's more that he has that populist streak to him, that ability to generate support. i'm actually not able to come up with a senator that has a better record than franken, but if you could find me one, they wouldn't have that raw political talent.

and, the democrats are once again demonstrating that they would rather lose any given election than be taken over by a candidate on the left.

if franken is out, the default is back to sanders. but, i'm not sure that i can support somebody his age running for office.

if we get around the corner here to the start of 2019 and have nobody in front of us in the democratic party besides a fading bernie sanders, i think there's a realistic chance that enough of a third party movement could develop to potentially land the democrats in third place.

the honest truth is that what's being reported about al franken doesn't upset me: it's a juvenile and harmless picture along with a disputed account of an event by a clearly unreliable accuser. this woman is an outspoken birther and a frequent guest on far right talk shows.

but, if this is the end of franken, expect it to be a pyrrhic victory for the democratic establishment, as he is probably their only realistic chance of winning in 2020. removing franken may be the decision that ends the democratic party as a political force in the united states of america.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

reddit isn't buying this, either.

this is a classic soviet-style take down. but, if we can maintain a questioning electorate, there's still some hope for democracy.

it's not like al franken is a political saviour or anything, but he's a reliable liberal and a credible option to defeat hillary. i think these events also confirm that he was thinking about running. despite the massive, co-ordinated push by the media & political establishment, i'd like to see some actual polling.

the little bit of grassroots evidence i've seen suggests people aren't buying into this - because it's just too obvious.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/11/17/1716569/-Timeline-and-questions-for-the-hit-job-on-Franken 

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

on top of that, the reality is that making ellison a senator would be handing the seat to the republicans.

this is the district that ellison represents:

it's minneapolis, basically - the urban core of the city.

this is how the state voted in the 2016 presidential election:

like the areas around minnesota, this is a state that is de-urbanizing in post-industrialization and being reclaimed by the agricultural midwest. like wisconsin, it is becoming less like illinois and more like iowa.

clinton very nearly lost this state.

and, running a black muslim nationalist with a history of right-wing extremism for statewide office is the way you lose it, maybe for good.

contrary to widespread reports, this state is highly vulnerable. it's not the place you play these games of identity politics in.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

the calls for resignation from clinton surrogates are just increasing. it's clear as day to me what's going on, here.

but, whatever happens with this, he cannot be replaced by keith ellison, who has a history of blatant anti-semitism and open homophobia.

you cannot replace a liberal jew with a conservative muslim (an openly anti-semitic and homophobic one) in a progressive state. and, the suggestion is horrifically egregious and absurdly offensive.

but, it reflects the fake left's priorities pretty clearly - and demonstrates the society they really want.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

the mail woman left my ink in the box.

she shouldn't have done that. but, ok.

i'll be trying to print the back of inri060 soon.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

the quebec liberals really are a right-wing catastrophe, aren't they?

wow.

the reality is that this won't survive a court challenge.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2017/11/16/quebec-to-ban-growing-your-own-weed-in-legalization-bill_a_23279817/?utm_source=spotim&utm_medium=spotim_recirculation&spotim_referrer=recirculation

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

actually, the photo clearly demonstrates that he didn't touch her at all.

i'm not a conservative person, and i'm not into decorum and proper behaviour. lewd, crass behaviour doesn't bother me. i swear, and i drink. and, yes - i'm lower class. so, i'm not going to add the caveat "it was in poor taste.."

...because, so what if it was in poor taste? since when is being an edgy comedian against the law? and, since when is morality a pre-requisite for public office? he's a senator, he's not a fucking priest.

rather, what the media reaction is demonstrating is that there is a co-ordinated movement to take franken out. the picture clearly demonstrates that he did not touch her, but they're spinning it as though he did. this is beyond the realm of accidental.

somebody named hillary wants him out.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/11/17/a-photo-shows-al-franken-touching-leeann-tweedens-chest-many-media-reports-still-say-he-allegedly-groped-her/?utm_term=.ccf7585ea01b

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

yeah, my ink's in windsor. but, my mailwoman just always leaves the slip. that's fine, i can get it tomorrow.

getting it today wouldn't help much, as i'm going to need another day for 61. but, it looks like i'm expanding this to a third disc by adding some further orchestral reworkings, a percussion mix and maybe a drone mix, to start with. i got the string mix done this morning, and i'm happy with it, but it's bed time.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

i've pointed this out repeatedly: what's happening in the united states right now is not a rise of any left, but a return of the right. and, the language has just gotten so confused, that the young conservatives have ended up calling themselves 'progressives', and in some cases even 'socialists', despite articulating what is basically textbook conservatism, through and through.

maybe it's as simple as defining one's self in opposition to the dominant narrative. if you're told that ted cruz is a conservative, and you disagree with everything he says, then you must be on some kind of left, right? but, the fact is that ted cruz is actually a liberal, and if you disagree with everything he says then that actually either makes you a socialist.....or a conservative. and, the country is collectively getting this completely confused.

some of them seem to get it, and think they're marxists. but, what they're actually articulating is this right-wing concept of leninism that was basically just a russian strain of conservatism. so, you get all of these same authoritarian attitudes that have been historically associated with the right, sold to these kids as a left that never was a left. and, they can grasp on to it as oppositional, because it actually is.

i was skeptical when i read the polls suggesting that young people don't actually support sanders' policies, but i think i'm losing skepticism. because, what they're actually searching for - and can't find - is an actual conservative vision of class harmony through a division of labour, with a powerful church willing to take up the slack.

and, we're all in a lot of trouble if these kids can straighten out the language and figure this out properly.

echo boomers indeed, right?

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

i'm not being ironic.

a lot of the legal literature you see nowadays looks like it was written in the bloody victorian era, with the intent to minimize stress on the gentler sex. and, there's nothing feminist about any of it. it's just reactionary patriarchal conservatism hiding behind a veneer of altruistic chauvinism.

but, it's not like younger women are grasping on to it by accident. this reversal of feminism was a part of neo-liberalism. it's manufactured. it's taught. and, like so much of the language, we've had the terms inverted.

women should not get special treatment in the legal system - because they are strong enough and capable enough to be treated the same way that we treat men. and, don't let these victorian reactionaries and gentlemanly chauvinists tell you otherwise.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

feminism is not about coddling women, and anybody suggesting as much to you is a reactionary.

if feminism is radical egalitarianism - and it is - then it means putting a woman making an accusation on the stand and making them answer hard questions, and demanding that they support their accusations.

lowering standards and expectations is a kind of sexism. and, what's underlying this mindset is a kind of chauvinist chivalry.

unfortunately, a lot of women are willing to buy right into it. i'm not.

defend your argument sufficiently, or withdraw it.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

i actually take great care to not identify as any particular ethnicity. but i need to point out that it's not the case that i'm like 90% white or something.

i'm really quite literally mixed.

on my father's side, i'm native american, african-american (probably), french canadian, italian and jewish. so, my father would have been 50% mediterranean (italian/jewish), either 12.5% native and 12.5% black OR 25% cree (it's not clear....) and 25% french canadian.

despite having a french canadian surname, he was only a quarter "white".

my mom's father is white- welsh/anglo/scot. but, her mother is a quarter asian through a finnish ancestry. my grandmother has broadly norse-irish phenotypes, but my mother actually looks kind of turkic, and it would be from the finnish. i can look pretty finnish, myself. but, my mom would come in at 87.5% white.

that would make me about 56.25% white european, 25% mediterranean, 6.25% asian and 12.5% cree (or african/cree).

that's not enough to identify as anything specific. i've never been to a synagogue, and i don't know anything about indigenous culture, besides being an intuitive anarchist. i'm certainly not culturally black. but, i don't really have any interest in white culture, either. while my biggest european ancestry comes from my mother's father, i have essentially no relationship with that side of the family - i've had a far closer relationship with my maternal grandmother and my father's siblings. the two family members i've been closest to are my father and my maternal grandmother.

but, i find your narrative lacking, to begin with.

i'm actually more attached to the old left ideas that reject nationalism and ethnicity as tools of capitalist control, and argues instead for a secular society built on scientific principles and radical concepts of total egalitarianism.

in other words, i don't actually think my ethnicity is important. i don't really want one. and, i won't interpret other people through the lens of their self-identification, either: we're all just human beings.

but, sure: i'm all of the subtypes i listed, and none of it is any more token or trivial than the rest, whatever it means - and whatever it doesn't mean, at all.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

but, if the reaction to the franken accusations clarify anything, it is this: hillary clinton will be running in 2020.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

i have a lot of respect for honesty, and not much at all for opportunism.

https://www.mediaite.com/online/i-loathe-al-franken-but-it-sure-seems-like-he-is-getting-totally-railroaded/

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

and, this woman is your typical right-wing fox news reporter that might very well be taking orders on this.

sometimes, women run up against a system that is designed to marginalize their statements and the truth gets lost in a sea of broken formalities. i don't think we should abolish those formalities. reality can be a shitty deal. and, i'm sorry if you find that harsh, but i'm not running for office, and i'm not going to sugar coat it. it's a shitty deal when something bad happens to you and you can't prove it. but, you still have that burden, and you still have to find a way to convince people that the facts are on your side - as hard as it might be, sometimes. if you can't do that, you might lose, and it might be unjust. but, that's how our system operates - a system that is not perfect, but is the best we can come up with, as the other option is a system where people can accuse each other without evidence - the system that once existed in our distant, monarchist past.

and, sometimes they don't - sometimes they can generate the necessary evidence and win.

and, sometimes women get sent to take down politicians that are threatening the status quo, or standing in the way of the ambitions of other politicians that are more powerful or better connected.

my intuition would be that this situation seems like the latter. and, that doesn't mean that the former situations don't happen, and suggesting that it does mean that is a textbook error in logic.

the proper thing to do in this situation is to carry through with the investigation. and, that will mean cross-examining the testimony of somebody that may very well have an ulterior motive in an attempt to uncover it. and, if the evidence leads us to the demonstration of this ulterior motive in the lack of evidence upholding the proposed narrative, then we must accept it and exonerate the accused - for the evidence would necessitate it.

and, we must follow the evidence, wherever it may lead.

my advice to mr. franken would be to insist that the investigation does not take place in the senate, as his own party would be just as happy to get rid of him. he's too "liberal", and a threat to the establishment candidates in the upcoming cycle. in order to get a fair trial, he's going to want to do this in a court of law.

but, it's too late: he's called for his own investigation.

expect a show trial.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

not only has al franken not been convicted of a crime, he has neither been charged with one nor even investigated in connection with one.

the rules have changed, alright.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/16/politics/can-al-franken-survive/index.html

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

there's nothing wrong with being skeptical about sexual harassment charges against al franken at this particular point in time, nor does it suggest any particular inclination towards any kind of viewpoint.

right now, he's a serious threat to both parties.

and, this is how you take a guy like him down.

i'm not saying it didn't happen. i'm saying there's nothing wrong with being skeptical about it, until some evidence comes forward.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

progressive activist: the system is rigged against us!
voice of reason: so, what's your solution?
progressive activist: let's rig the system in our favour!

hrmmn.

you know, some people in the past have argued that power corrupts. maybe there's something to that.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

my ink might be here tomorrow, actually. have to keep an eye on that. if so, i could ship as early as saturday. if not, it's looking like it will probably be tuesday.

i wanted to ship more today, but i was only able to get inri058 out. that's the 4 cd set. it's shipped.

my drop by odsp was a little underwhelming, but only in the sense of it not being at all formal. i had to write a request by hand. i'll probably type something up before tuesday. i know this is all discretionary, but the situation is rather ridiculous; i can't afford to pay a mover, so if i can't move the furniture then i'll have to leave it here and then go to charity to get more furniture. and, i'd guess that the owners of this place will probably end up donating this furniture to charity. that would be kind of outrageously stupid, right? in the end, the city ends up paying for the moving costs, anyways. but, i know better than to expect pristine logic from the city.

i updated my accounting to reflect the price i actually paid for ink over the last two years, and it makes less of a difference than i thought, overall - my profit decreased from $42 to $34, and sean's went from $6 to $4.50. it's disappointing, but not catastrophic. most of the records i've sold don't have sean on them; i'm actually splitting things 50/50. but, if i get 50 pages out of $20 ink, it's closer to the profit margin i expected.

the actual truth is that i still haven't covered start-up costs.

i'm otherwise fed and am in or the weekend, so i'm going to shower and get to work on inri061. i'm hoping this is the last stretch before i get to the compilations next week.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

so, i'm about to get back to work for a few hours over night, but what did i do today?

i gave odsp a call when i woke up this afternoon and realized that i'm going to have to go in and talk to somebody tomorrow. my worker's not in this week. but, i need to get the forms running. and, i need to do that before i call about utilities and estimating moving costs. if i can just get the forms tomorrow and bring them in on tuesday, i'll be happy with that.

after the saga of serving the appeal last week, which was largely a consequence of not being able to find the right tube for my bicycle, i had to make sure i got the thing right, so i went down to the local bicycle store and grilled him on what i needed. with my rain jacket, i maybe seemed a little like the spanish inquisition - but i called ahead, so he had what i needed there when i got there. he talked me into buying a tire. i didn't need a lot of convincing, because i'm going to need a new tire eventually anyways, right? or, to put it another way: i can always use a spare tire.

we can all always use a spare tire.

they should put that on the side of the space shuttles. it's maybe the closest thing to a universal human truth that i've ever fucking seen. really.

anyways.

what was the problem with the tube i got at canadian tire last week - not once, but twice? see, i showed it to the guy and he said my tire must have some glass in it because it's ripped. that's why i bought a tire.

we can all always use a spare tire.

but, i think it actually ripped on the rim, because it didn't fit right. the first one just inflated into it. and the second one felt like i was riding a balloon animal for a few seconds before it popped.  it just didn't fit. that's all there is to it.

i actually got the technically correct correct tubes, this time. see, i'd been hacking out a 28-32 for i don't know how long. the tubes that burst were 23-28, and they were floppy. i should have actually been using 38s the whole time. imagine that. hrmmn.

after a brief stop at the grocery store (with the tire around my neck), i went home and fixed the tire - and fixed it is, yes. i took it out for a spin to make sure. i'm good to go.

so, at the end of the ordeal, i ended up spending a total of about $70 and i got a working bike pump, a spare tire and a spare tube out of it, in addition to getting the thing working. about $15 of that disappeared on bad tubes. but, i learned something from it.

i didn't sit down to eat until close to 9:00, and i had to do dishes and clean up in here after all of that. but i'm ready to finish the cover art for the second mp3 disc and get back to the rest of it after that.

i might be able to print in grey scale, but i have to wait until the ink gets here before i can print the rest of the covers. so, i'm going to go ahead and make the actual discs, and then see if i can print greyscale on them or not. either way, everything should be ready to go when the ink gets here.

and, i should be able to get around and do some things on my bicycle in the morning.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

in america, when the president wants to boost his approval rating, he starts a war.

in canada, we find a country in the midst of a famine and send troops through the united nations to help.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

but, let us not lose context.

why did canada end up as this peacekeeping country? the reason is that we didn't want to get involved in the wars. canada didn't go to vietnam; we accepted draft dodgers. some of them had famous kids. but, we were signatories to the defence agreements, and we wanted to be, and we knew we needed to be, and we understood that we had to contribute.

so, we took tactical positions.

these were never fully altruistic. when we sent our troops into this african country to fight a famine, or that asian country to build roads, it was always in line with the broader strategic interests of the western alliance. i don't know how many of us ever really fully understood this. but, we took pride in it, nonetheless.

and, thus, the question that trudeau ought to ask is this: what roads need to be built, and what populations need to be fed, to advance the interests of the west, without succumbing to it's most nihilistic tendencies?

and, the answer before us is that so much of the work is already done.

but, rather than seek out a solution for the sake of it, perhaps we should wait for the problems to more clearly present themselves.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

this whole narrative is some kind of surreal joke. and, it's designed to create something to run on in the next election.

i can't claim most people will anaylse this the way i do. maybe you'll get some nationalist responses around this. but, the ethnic component of the country has changed so dramatically, that i don't think it's a given.

in the 60s and 70s, canada was a mostly white and largely anglo country, so it could step into conflicts between western powers, and attempt to defuse cold war situations in ethnic lands from this kind of aloof british position of detached near non-alignment, and the population was able to grasp on to it as articulating a kind of alternative theory of empire. we were the conscience of the commonwealth. and, it worked because we could be obviously western and yet credibly neutral at the same time.

today, if we try to step in between just about any conflict, we're going to be seen as acting in the interest of this lobby or that. worse, so many new canadians don't have this attachment to articulating a friendlier kind of empire; they see the world in terms of racial conflict, colonizer and colonized. and, canada is just america lite.

what is happening in yemen is the kind of conflict that canada has historically stepped in to create a buffer to prevent. if we're in a new cold war, the yemenis are in the other camp. but, the reality is that we're selling the saudis guns, instead.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/canada-offers-equipment-and-soldiers-for-peacekeeping-no-decision-on-where/article36985352/

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

“There are people who wish I wouldn’t refer to China as our enemy. But that’s exactly what they are. They have destroyed entire industries by utilizing low-wage workers, cost us tens of thousands of jobs, spied on our businesses, stolen our technology, and have manipulated and devalued their currency, which makes importing our goods more expensive – and sometimes, impossible.”- donald trump, 2015

see what he wants, here?

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

i think i'm catching a hold of something, here.

it seems to be that people think that trump threatened to stop trading with china. i don't know if there were specific articles floating around, or if the clinton people may have helped in the confusion. but, i take it that there's this perception that trump was threatening a trade war and, ultimately, a reduction in trade. i guess this comes out of the intuitive view that the obvious way to close a trade deficit is to decrease imports. or, maybe it's just a naive and ignorant reaction to what is perceived as conflict: if trump is saying things about the trading relationship with china, he doesn't like china (maybe he's even racist!) and therefore doesn't want to trade with china. as though a criticism implies he wants a boycott. i guess that's the logic of a moralizing fundamentalist, which so much of the contemporary pseudo-left really is at heart.

but, decreasing imports doesn't create jobs, necessarily. it might. a surer way that you create jobs is by increasing exports. and, the way that you close a trade deficit without decreasing gdp (and who wants that....) is that you increase exports.

what is a trade deficit? now, let me start by saying that i'm not really concerned about trade deficits so much as i'm concerned about self-sufficiency, food sovereignty, climate change and workers' rights. trade deficits are kind of irrelevant to me.

but, what is it?

a trade deficit is just when you import more from a country than you export. that's all it means. so, when the talking heads on the news say that america has a trade deficit with china, all it means is that china imports more goods into the united states than it accepts from the united states in return.

now, if that's the case, then maybe chinese workers are making things that american workers might make, and perhaps used to make. but, it also means that american manufacturers are being shut out of the chinese market. so, if you're looking to reduce the trade deficit, you want to do these two things, in some capacity:

1) decrease the amount of goods entering the country
2) increase the amount of goods exiting the country.

but, the first thing is just meaningless without the second. if you cut imports without increasing production, you just end up without goods on the shelves. so, what you want to do is increase exports, and then hope that the local production competes well against the foreign production.

in a situation where this is impossible - and mexico is closer to this than china - you may have to cut off open trade altogether and instead retreat to very managed trade. and, that's what he's doing in mexico, too.

all this aside, i should point out the bernie actually threatened to cut trade relations with china. and, maybe trump inaccurately absorbed bernie's position on this, in the minds of many. but, trump just didn't do that. what he was concerned about was reducing the deficit. and, what that always clearly meant was increasing exports.

if you're upset about this, you need to stop listening to democrats and democratic party propaganda. how many times does the actual left have to tell you this? they're just as dishonest and misleading as the republicans are. and, you'll end up just as clueless.

the last time i remember this happening like this was with obama and war. a lot of people thought obama was an anti-war candidate. but, he never said anything of the sort. and, he was one of the most violent presidents, in the end.

the media is dangerous. you need to be vigilant. you need to question. you need to verify. and, the internet exists.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

this was really the only thing that trump broadcast that was worth taking seriously.

this is the reason he cut the tpp: he wanted a military containment, not an en economic one.

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/11/14/quad-n14.html

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

it's not my responsibility to educate you about transfinite arithmetic.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

so, i bought some cheap ink.

it's high yield for $20. the last package i bought was normal yield for $80. so, this could be less than 1/5th of the price.

i know that there are risks involved with this. i'm feeling like i need to take them.

it should be here before wednesday. and, the truth is that i won't be totally done by then, anyways.

so, i'll hold off on jacking up the price, for now. let's see what i get out of this.

it's 7:00. wow. lol.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

i may have less ink in there than i thought.

i think it's worse than that.

1) the size of the cartridges is steadily decreasing.
2) they base their metrics on very minimal coverage, and cover art tends to be very ink heavy. if they say you get 500 pages at 5% coverage and i'm printing at 50% coverage, each page i'm printing is 10 pages in the metrics. so, i'm only getting 50 pages, but it's fifty pages at ten times the metric - and there's your 500 pages.

i'm going to look for something more efficient. but, i think the reality is just that the price of ink is extremely high, and if you want a package like this it's going to cost me some money to make it.

again: it's not so so bad, really.

maybe i lowballed the cost.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

i still have a lot of extra cash.

maybe i can do some research into a more efficient printer, before i boost these prices too far.

$15 canadian for an lp is still pretty good. and most of my eps are lp length. $12 isn't too bad at all.

but, i have the prices low for a reason. and i don't really want to have the downloads priced differently than the physical media.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

no, i just need to boost the price.

eps are now $12.

lps are now $15.

that's what it costs.

sorry.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

my printer is out of colour ink, already.

that's about 40-50 pages printed, for an $80 cartridge - meaning it costs $2/page. and, if the disc has a front and a back, it's costing me $4-5 in ink per disc.

i had to do the experiment to figure it out. and, these are the results.

they're outrageous...

i can't sell eps for $7 if i'm spending $5 in ink. based on some basic research, i had ballparked $0.15/disc. so, i'm either going to have to find a cheaper source of ink, or i'm going to have to increase the price.

my estimated static costs were $1.75/disc, meaning that i was clearing $5.25 on an ep and $8.25 on an lp. if my static costs are now $6.45/disc, i'd need to charge $12 for an ep and $15 for an lp to balance out the costs.

i think that's unreasonable.

so, i'm going to have to search for a cheaper source of ink.

i know that the printer cartridge is not out. it has a chip in it. but, i have to find a way around it. maybe i can trick the machine into finishing off the cartridge, to start.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

in a really serious way, i'm just simply too civilized to enjoy sex.

jagmeet singh must cut  his beard.

i don't know why i have to explain this over and over, but apparently i do.

listen: there's not any way you can get around this. sex with a penis is a violent act. you can try and minimize it, but chances are you won't get much appreciation from it - nobody wants you to use your penis daintily. it doesn't matter if your victim by choice is male or female; the point of getting fucked is to absorb the aggression. and, so, if you're stuck with a penis, the only choices you have are to come to terms with the violence inherent within using it, or just choose not to use it. and, if you don't have that violence or aggression within you, if you're a person that lives their life with an attempt to minimize aggression and violence, and if you consequently find the idea of sex in a male role to be kind of revolting, then the thing is ultimately just fucking useless to you.

i don't know how to use the thing. i don't want to learn how to use the thing. i just want it to not be there.

but, i don't want to pretend that i'm a gay male, either, because i'm not.

so, i'm abstinent.

let's try a thought experiment because it might help you understand better: if i were to go off hormones and re-identify as male, would it affect my sex life? it wouldn't, because i'd still have that aversion to sex, because i understand that it is an unavoidable act of violence. and, this is empirical, observational. i was off hormones from 2003 to 2010 and i did not have sex with anybody at all after 2005. the one person i did have sex with before 2003 was ultimately just frustrated that i didn't have any real personal interest in it, and didn't know how to use the thing, and didn't want to learn how. there is an unavoidable chemical reality that would reassert itself if i were to stop the testosterone suppressors, but the only likely measurable outcome of this would be a return to disinterested, routine daily masturbation - i would approach it like i'm brushing my teeth.

i might gain an interest in sex in a hypothetical post-op situation, but finding somebody to have sex with me would be a more challenging proposition, and i'm not walking down that path for that reason. at least if i keep it and just suppress the testosterone, i'm not setting myself up for the obvious devastating outcome. and, i keep telling you that i'm a realist.

i ultimately don't care how you label me. if you want to insist that i'm not really female, but am instead an incredibly faggy male that chooses to chemically castrate himself and take hormones to look effeminate, then you can do that. i might say that if it quacks like a duck, it's a duck. you can insist otherwise if it makes you feel good - it doesn't have any effect on how i'm going to behave. and, if you want me to just throw the gender nonconformity in your face to piss you off, i can do that, too. i don't care. really.

but, you do need to listen to me about the sexual disinterest and get your head around that. because, there are situations where i'm going to react in self-defense to coercion. and, these should not be surprising - you should be able to predict them from simply listening to me.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.